Cellulite

The first time I realized I had cellulite was freshman year of college. I was sittingin my dorm room floor listening to Deana Carter on a tape player, wearing Girbaud jean shorts and eating cafeteria take out. I was sitting cross-legged and reading Beowulf. Thankfully, my roommate Kellie wasn’t there for this cataclysmic moment. If she saw this alien, bubble like substance attached to the inside of my legs and butt she would of freaked. No way she had this stuff.

Am I in an alter reality, I think? Cellulite happens to women who are in their 40’sor something, right? I feel my hair turning gray as I stew.

I begin pinching and prodding my skin, looking backward in the mirror to seehow bad this cottage cheese situation really is. In my estimation, it’s bad. I sitdown and press my legs together like text books smashed in a backpack. Theterrible truth: divots appear. On both legs. And cheeks.

How has this happened? I’m not overweight and I’ll hit the weights when thereare cute guys bench-pressing after a run. Ok, so cheesecake is my favorite food,but NO ONE TOLD ME THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

I call my cousin, Lana. She’s a personal trainer, massage therapist and has greatboobs. Lana is not shocked amazingly. She says this is normal? And then theother shoe drops: she tells me this stuff will probably never go away. “Beconfident,” she said, “you’re beautiful no matter what.”

I’ll never wear shorts again, I think. I see a Salvation Army drop off in my future.

–

That was ten years ago. The memory, however, is still fresh. It’s fresh because Iknew there was a freedom with and in my body I would no longer completely feelagain. There was an invincibility, a youthful sense of immortality thatevaporated. Ignorance had been bliss. Now, I needed Eve’s garden coveringsbecause nakedness had been named.

Most women can point to such a slam-on-the-brakes moment where theyremember feeling physically less than, shamed. Compared. Often, it is infinitelymore traumatic than my silly cellulite discovery. Often it is a criminal act, blatantmisogyny or severe self-flagellation.

But we’re strong, and we bounce back smarter, wiser, more certain of whom weare as women, even if we take the long road to get there. The challenge is tocontinue rolling through the roadblocks as they come: injury, infertility, deep setlaugh lines, weight gain, health failings, and any myriad of issues we face aswomen in a society that is obsessed with, in my opinion, all the wrong things.This crazed pressure and obsession has lead us down the dark and villainouspath of glorifying anorexia and making 12-year-old girls wonder if they haveenough “thigh gap.” Airbrushing is no longer thought deceptive; it’s industrymandatory. The long road feels longer still.

Despite these not-so-subtle coercions to indulge in near narcissism, I’m happy toreport a triumph: my love for shorts has been re-discovered in my maturation.Well…Kickboxing in sweatpants just didn’t seem feasible, you know?

And if I had a blackboard I would write it down in colored chalk: Cellulite – 0 Me– 1

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But lest I get cocky about my triumph over societal pressures, I must confessthat cellulite woes in my life aren’t gone. No, they just seemed to havemutated. It’s no longer bubble like butt indents or thigh-pressing that sends meon a Brazil nut / pomegranate / ice cream stress-eating bonanza.

No, it’s much deeper.

That throat-clutching, divot-exposing moment that I had in my North Russelldorm ten years ago is re-creating itself in the form of Life Cellulite. I look in themirror and see fear, anxiety, anger. This emotional ‘cottage cheese’ is all over myidentity, self worth, and I’m afraid to wear the Daisy Dukes of the Soul.Every woman I know fights this ongoing battle in varying degrees. As of late, myresponse is to throw out the old clothes of who I am just in case they’re toorevealing and let people see too much of me. It feels like I can’t run and play withreckless abandon in my Self Confidence Shorts. Hiding and covering myselfseems a necessity for survival. I’m less than for a new reason and shamed intosilence, watching West Wing alone.

NO ONE TOLD ME THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, I think.

Or did they?

In an act of seeming colossal time waste, I read my old journals. I learn I’m totallydifferent and completely the same. The pages turn through years of life and Iread of painful struggles. Life Cellulite, I think. I read of great triumphs: the longroad was actually much more beautiful. My former self keeps reminding me of thesame thing through each page, though.

Who I am as a woman is never to be defined in total by what I do, accomplish,by what people think of me or what my body looks like.

I am to run with Glorious Freedom, recklessly wild down the brambled paths anddirt roads and not care how my shorts fit; the real one or the metaphorical one,even when they crawl up and give me a wicked wedgie. No, Life Cellulite is thestuff that makes our character stronger, makes us people of enduring honesty,peace, patience, kindness, and actually worth talking to at a dinner party. Realcellulite makes us women, not girls.

We may be losing a battle today, whether it’s blowing our top with our childrenor not fitting into our skinny jeans, but we have already won the war.